Cameron suppressed his laughter as Ainsley stared at a page of blatantly naked Courbet figures, twined in an interesting position. He made a wager with himself whether she’d throw down the book in disgust and storm out, or whether his Mrs. Douglas would soldier on.
He won the bet when she drew a deep, determined breath and continued to fan through the pages.
Finding nothing, Ainsley placed the book back on the shelf and gingerly opened the next one, which was much the same. “You—read—this?”
“Of course I do. I collect it.”
“It’s in French.”
“Don’t you read books in French? Isabella told me you went with her to her fine ladies’ academy.”
“I learned it, yes, but I doubt any of these words were in our primer.”
Cameron stopped trying to contain his laughter and let it burst out. It felt good.
“I would finish much more quickly if you helped me,” she said.
Cameron leaned on the bedpost again. “But it’s much more entertaining to watch you.”
Ainsley made an exasperated noise, shoved the book back into the bookcase, and untied and opened a folio. She studied the first drawing. “I know I’m unworldly, Lord Cameron, but I’m not certain that what they’re doing is quite possible.”
Cameron leaned over her shoulder to look at the sensual sketch by Romano, drawn three centuries before. Admittedly the people depicted were in an awkward pose. “I buy it for the beauty of it, not for instruction.”
“Well, that’s a mercy, or you’d never have had a son.”
Cam let out another laugh, the power of true mirth filling his body.
Could anything be more sensual than watching a lovely young woman leaf through page after page of his erotic pictures?
There was nothing of the prude about Ainsley, nor did she send him suggestive glances, using the drawings as seduction. She looked through each folio carefully, her cheeks sweetly pink, her br**sts rising against her décolletage.
When she laid the last folio back on its shelf, Ainsley turned to him. “They’re not here,” she said, disappointed.
Cameron took another sip of whiskey. “There’s my study next door.”
“Is that a possibility?”
“Aye, it is.”
He didn’t miss Ainsley’s flush as she speculated why Cameron might take a mistress to his private study. “Very well, let us search the study.”
The room didn’t connect to his bedroom. Cameron led her down the hall a few steps to the next door, which he unlocked. Normally he didn’t lock his doors when he stayed at Kilmorgan—no need—but with all the comings and goings up here, he’d done it today.
Ainsley took on a look of dismay when she viewed the clutter of the study. This was Cameron’s private room, his retreat from the overstated social life that he sometimes had to lead as Hart’s brother and heir to the title.
Racing newspapers lay everywhere, as did books on all things equine. Cameron had contributed chapters or essays to a few of them, publishers begging for his opinion on the subject.
Cam’s prized paintings hung here as well: pictures of the horses he’d grown up with, of his best racers, of the ones he simply loved. Mac had painted most of them, although Degas had done a sketch for him of a horse in motion, all rippling muscles and tossing mane.
Angelo was the only one allowed to touch this room, and the man knew better than to disturb anything. It all got a bit dusty, but the whiskey decanter and the humidor were always replenished, the ashtrays emptied and cleaned, and any stray pieces of clothing, boots, or riding equipment restored to their proper places.
Cameron took a clean glass from the tray holding the whiskey and held it up. “Drink? It will be thirsty work.”
Ainsley eyed the glass in some trepidation. Cameron expected her to remind him that ladies didn’t drink spirits, but she gave him a nod. “Yes, why not? I prefer it with soda. Do you have any?”
Cameron lifted the cut glass stopper from the decanter. “This is Mackenzie single malt. Hart would die of apoplexy if anyone cut it with soda. It’s neat or nothing.”
Ainsley began lifting papers from his desk. “Very well. My brothers taught me to enjoy it with soda, but then we never could afford Mackenzie blend. I can hear Steven’s sighs of envy now.”
By the time Cameron poured the glass and brought it to her, Ainsley had seated herself on the floor, her skirts a swath of satin around her, a stack of papers and handwritten notes next to her. She accepted the whiskey, looking up at him with animated gray eyes.
Cameron clinked his glass against hers. “To a fruitful search.”
She nodded, took a practiced sip, and continued sorting papers into neat stacks.
“Anything?” Cameron asked, leaning over her shoulder. From here he could look straight down the cle**age of her soft br**sts, and he didn’t mind that at all.
Ainsley wished to heaven he wouldn’t stand next to her like that. Cameron’s legs were firm and muscular under the socks he’d donned for the walk in the wet garden, the hem of his kilt on her eye level.
She glanced at his feet, large and muscular, pressing out the leather of his finely tailored shoes. Mud from the garden clung to one. Above the shoes were wide ankles behind thick gray wool, his legs those of a giant.
Ainsley couldn’t stop her gaze from rising higher, to the shadow under his plaid kilt, where she glimpsed a brawny knee. He was warm, too, his legs radiating heat to her bare shoulder. She’d been so awfully cold in the garden, and standing against him had taken all the cold away.
She made herself continue sorting the papers. No erotica here, only horses, races and results, histories and bloodlines of stallions, notes on what horses were being bought and sold. She stacked them all into piles, wondering how on earth he found anything.
“Who is Night-Blooming Jasmine?” Ainsley asked. The name came up often.
“Filly I’m training. Horse with damned fine promise.”
Ainsley looked up, unable to miss the glimpse of inner thigh in her view, the line of scar on it in shadow. She forced her gaze up, past the flat front of his kilt, to his shirt and the cravat he was in the act of loosening. His throat came into view, tanned and strong. Ainsley felt a flutter of pleasure. She liked him unbuttoned.
“Is she yours?” Ainsley asked, not missing the pride in his voice.
“Not yet.” Cameron pulled the folds of cravat from his neck and tossed the cloth carelessly to the desk. “Bloody owner won’t sell her to me.”